Food good.

A few years back I had this job teaching English to at risk kids. My job was an overstatement. And saying “at risk” was an understatement.
But I had this job. And I brought in a book called “A Rose That Grew From The Concrete” by Tupac.
I had a contest in my class and gave away a few copies.
On kid in particular was noticeably moved.
He rarely smiled and was, like I was and many are at that age, pretty apathetic.
But he got that book and was so proud.
Just thinking of him tonight.

For him. For me. For You.
The title poem from that collection.

The Rose that Grew from Concrete

Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature’s law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it’s dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared.

-Tupac Shakur

How much can you take?
How much can you give?
How much can you hurt?
How much can you heal?
How many can you save?
How many days will you lose?
What is victory?
How much can you make?
When is enough enough?
What are your limits?

Watch the following 15 minute video. Please.
Just watch. And then think.
And maybe rethink. And then do.

When I think of Punk Rock I think of rebellion. I think of going against the grain. I think of people not giving a rats ass what anyone else thinks. Punk rock sees the world and life and doesn’t so much hate it, as some would think, but rather loves it so much that they want it to be better. So they challenge it and try to kick it into shape. A punk embraces his or her ideals of how great life can be and follows those ideals despite the often painful consequences. Usually a feeling of isolation and being “different” than everyone else. And the easiest way to deal with those feelings is to put on a rough exterior and crazy haircut and mean visage and scare people away from you and pretend like you don’t care. The consequences of rejecting the bullcrap status quo offered by processed packaged boring minds who are asleep in fear and boredom. Rejecting what the TV says is news. Rejecting the desire to give in and accept a benign safe reality and living a life of challenge, and excitement, and wonder. But a true punk finds their way out of the darkness and sees beauty regardless. Punk rock sees sunsets and sunrises. Punk rock believes what it wants despite the so called facts. It is not concerned with the odds and actually feels a little more comfortable with it’s back against the wall and being a 100-1 underdog. The stereotypes of eccentric clothing and hairstyles and snarls and sneers and gritted teeth and loud overdriven music and violent pushing and screaming are not ends in themselves. They are survival techniques. They are coping mechanisms. They are battle flags and war cries. They are screams of pleasure and freedom. They are wails of mourning and sorrow. Make no mistake. Beyond the trappings of non-conformity draped over the punk rock spirit is something quite simple and beautiful. It is a heart. A heart of ideals. A heart that is filled with youth and desire despite age or background. Punks transcend time. Woody Guthrie was just as punk as The Clash. Walt Whitman was just as punk as Black Flag. Jesus and Buddha were just as punk rock as Hunter S. Thompson and Allen Ginsberg. Emily Dickinson and Patti Smith will forever be on the same team in eternity. As will John Keats and Lou Reed. All these punks had at their core the ability to stand up to their society and environment and challenge it. They lived differently and ultimately provided steadying balance to an off kilter world on a tilted fulcrum.

So I have pontificated about punk rock for one reason. Because today I was moved by a very punk rock person. A person that takes our current way of life and flips it upside down. Pile drives it. And exposes it for the devil impostor it is. A person that teaches us to, of all things ..be vulnerable when society tells us to close off and and cover up. To be open. To be gentle when society says push your way to the front and take what’s yours. Be compassionate when society says lookout for those out to get you. Creative when society says just build it quick and give the masses what they want. To share when the morning papers tell us to protect what’s ours. And to be loving and embrace others despite the awful risks of pain and heartbreak and loss that will possibly and eventually come to us. This person is the most punk rock person I know. He is dead now but his punk spirit lives on and my daughter and I watch him all the time. He wears a sweater like Kurt Cobain did in the unplugged special. Retro Chuck Taylor looking sneakers. Greasy hair. He has a a bunch of crazy friends. Works on all kinds of DIY projects. And everyday he goes around town and does whatever the hell he wants.
Ladies and gentlemen I post below a video of the punkest most bad ass man I know.

Bunny Please

Easter is about rebirth and new life
but for many
I suspect
It is more about the old life.
A rewrite of the the old life
A rewind to the beginning.
A chance to polish that old script.
The theologians and priests would
disagree that their efforts were about a sacrilege like reincarnation
but make no mistake
resurrection is just that.
Not the restart or reboot of the same life
but the ability to create something new
Another chance
A new spring attempt at a better garden
A mother and her young
Another litter and another attempt
to infuse the clockwork mundane of nature with something new,
something unique. Pieces of you.

New birth. Water rains. cleansing.
Washing left over debris away down the street and creek.
to make way for the upcoming blossom.
Spring cleaning and cleansing.
Kill the failed bearded idealist prophet in rags
and stand back and behold the white robed new life.
It is more than anything else the belief in magic.
A belief that it’s possible to make it all disappear and become someone else. And that appeals to everyone everywhere.
“Fools and pilgrims all over the world.” Said Simon.*
The man at the convenience store would love to forget that dad that waited for him every day to fail and wishes this time when he replays the memory he would kick back. If he knew that the fists and straps and violent smacks would echo for so long in his life and keep him from attempting anything he dreamed..If he knew then He would have fought back. If he knew then the magic man was an empty top hat and fake wand he would have taken care of that shit himself instead of praying every night for His help.
If the woman on the other end of the phone had known the scars would indeed last forever and that the razor words and alcohol splash insults on her blood soaked adolescence would stigmata her side and wrists forever..
If she knew then that “then” mattered so much and would linger and hurt for so long she would have told the other girls to fuck off. she would have kicked him in the balls she would have stood up straight and threw her head back and smiled at the mirror instead of shooting blood bee bees to pock her reflection.
If any of us knew then that the hell we had then was worth leaving to make tomorrow’s heaven a little easier
we would have packed our shit and walked out of that joint a long time ago.
But none of us did.
We didn’t know.
Because seeing the future is magic. And magic is impossible.
And we are here on this hill looking down. It is however never finished.
That sacrifice did nothing. The blood on the door did nothing and the angel still came
all over us. So let’s try something different.
We need to recreate and to bury the old. Bury it under a stone so deep that the only way we could even look at that stone is to put a little bunny on top with candy.
The perfect distraction.
No one would have ever expected a bunny.
As ridiculous as a giant Atari 2600 video game system being the marker and statue in front of the gates of Auschwitz to commemorate the holocaust.
No connection. A glorious and healing non sequitur.
Because without that random bunny we know exactly what is under that stone.
So I say bring on the bunny. One bunny please.The manufactured green nylon grass in woven supermarket basket bearing up peeps and synthetic sugar beans.
Bring on the Easter parade. The bonnets. The eggs. The shiny shoes.
The eggs. Let it roll.
But do not roll away the stone. Because the fact is he is not risen. He is still dead and rotting.
And the past is still there.
And it always will be.
So today.
You know, just for today.
Just for today.
Put a bunny on it and say fuck it.

-John
4-24-2011

* “Questions For The Angels” – Paul Simon

1. Black Tornado (Live from NYC) – Dan Bern
2. Hey Anna Lena – Bell X1
3. These Days – Foo Fighters
4. Read My Mind (Like Rebel Diamonds Mix) – The Killers
5. Velcro – Bell X1
6. Everything I Do – Whiskeytown
7. The Afterlife – Paul Simon
8. Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight – Whiskeytown
9. Sing It Loud – K. D. Lang & The Siss Boom Bang
10. Grenade – Bruno Mars
11. Uberlin – R.E.M.
12. Rewrite – Paul Simon
13. Stereophonics – Rewind
14. Questions For The Angels – Paul Simon
15. Early In The Morning, I’ll Come Calling – James Vincent McMorrow
16. Heaven – K. D. Lang & The Siss Boom Bang
17. Just The Way You Are – Bruno Mars
18. I Confess – K. D. Lang & The Siss Boom Bang
19. If I Had A Boat – James Vincent McMorrow
20. Goodbye – Drive-By Truckers
21. Kill For A Dream – Beady Eye
22. Devil Town – Tony Lucca
23. Blessed – Lucinda Williams
24. Born To Be Loved – Lucinda Williams
25. We Don’t Eat – James Vincent McMorrow
26. Ugly Truth – Lucinda Williams

Our culture mistakes screaming illogical demagogues for political discourse and makes the number one TV shows the ones where three people sit and judge a persons talent. No wonder we are now a nation of socially inept bullies, dangerously inconsiderate drivers, and mob like suburban gangs of spoiled mean people.

Ok. So I had long day.

-John

This is a song I shared with the people in Canton, Massachusetts tonight. It’s by Dan Bern. It’s called Kid’s Prayer.
Either download it or stream it. Unfortunately it is not for sale at any sight. An unreleased bootleg kind of thing.
If you would like to give Dan Bern money buy one of his fine albums or see him live.
I recommend “New American Language”, “Breathe” or one of his recent Live in NY or Live in LA albums.

Download Kid’s Prayer.

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Kid’s Prayer by Dan Bern

So sad, so sad the news
Come our way this morning
Like a bad bad dream
A dream that you’d never even talk about
In a school, a school
A place where we send our precious children
The only place of innocence the world might ever let them know

And barely aware of the odds against existence in the first place
Of love and fertility and risk of a baby being born
And of clothes and food and fear and maybe relocation
Of sickness, recovery, of music lessons, painting the bedroom

And lingering over eggs and thoughts and sleepy conversations
And plans for the weekend
One last pause to say goodbye
And a glance at the clock
And the grabbing of the sandwich and the notebook
Confident of nothing but the unbroken days that they’ve been granted

But comes a child
A child so full of anger and hatred
Barely aware of the genesis coursing through his veins
With a gun, a gun
Deaf and blind deliverer of madness
Skilled beyond his own unformulated brain

And with his hand in a fist
And his soul in a knot
And his heart racing
And his mind sick with images
His slim shoulders finally feeling tall

And his fellow creatures
Students and their crushes and their daydreams
Struggling to unwrap the ancient secrets of geometry
He pulls from his coat the instrument to shatter all forevers
In a random blaze of insides and blood and endless now

And noise and flash and more and not even when it’s over
Can any so much as summon up the sanity to scream
Then on the floor his classmates blown down and choking
As he lays his weapon on his desk, hardly sure he isn’t dreaming

And all the world descends and offers up their condolence
And offers up their theories what went wrong
And who and why and when and how

It’s all the killing day and night on television
It’s all the movies where violence is as natural as breathing
It’s guns and bullets as easily obtainable as candy
It’s video games where you kill and begin to think it’s real
It’s people not having God in their lives anymore
Or it’s all of it, or none of it, or some of it, or various combinations

And all those theories sound pretty reasonable, I guess
Though I ain’t no scientist
I ain’t no figurer of statistics
I ain’t no theologist
Or psychologist or biologist
All I can do is offer up a prayer of my own

Talk to your kids
Play with your kids
Tell them your dreams
And your disappointments
Listen with your kids
Listen to your kids
Watch your kids
Let your kids watch you
Tell your kids the truth
Best as you can tell it
No use telling lies
Your kids can always smell it
Cook for your kids
Let your kids cook for you
Sing with your kids
Teach your kids the blues
Learn their games
Teach them yours
Touch your kids
Find out what they know
Be sad with your kids
Be stupid with your kids
Learn with your kids
Cry with you kids
Be yourself with your kids
Be real with your kids
Embarrass your kids
Let them embarrass you
Be strong with your kids
Be tough with your kids
Be firm with your kids
Say “No” to your kids
Say “Yes” to your kids
Take it easy on your kids
You were a kid
Not so long ago
There are things you know
Your kids will never know
There’s places they live
Where you will never go
So dance with your kids
Paint with your kids
Walk with your kids
Tell stories to your kids
Watch movies with your kids
Eat popcorn with your kids
Tell secrets to your kids
Stop for rainbows with your kids
One day your kids
Won’t be kids
And maybe they’ll have kids of their own
Let’s hope they talk to their kids
Play with their kids
Tell them their dreams
And their disappointments

Some time back. Maybe two days, years, or decades ago. When things were bad, I had an illogical ridiculous thought that it was somehow gonna all be OK. I was right.